The musical, which puts a delightfully adult twist on a children’s bee, opened Feb. 7, and every performance since then has been sold out, director Allen Shankles said.

“It’s a strong show,” he said. “The performers are great, and it’s funny as heck. I think people are just really enjoying it and telling their friends.”

I saw the show Feb. 8 and, as I raved on Facebook immediately afterwards, found it immensely entertaining.

Veteran actors Jason Crespin, Cara Clopton and Jenny Morgan give hysterical (particularly Crespin) and touching (especially Morgan) performances as three of the bee’s competitors, but the small cast has a plethora of riches.

I was pretty partial to Brett Spalding’s Chip Tolentino (not just because of his name), and Justin Loe makes a potentially off-putting character achingly sympathetic.

Strong performances are also turned in by Savannah Singleton as an overachieving competitor, Brandon Nase as the golden-throated grief counselor, Lindsey Williams as the empathetic bee moderator and Jonathan Mobley as the dry but obsessive vice principal.

The musical is exceedingly smart, though not clever for its own sake. The music and lyrics by William Finn (a musical theater genius whose works should be staged here more often) find the heart in the farcical proceedings.

The bee has found a good home in the intimate environs of the Adventure Space.

With a spectacularly realistic set designed by Tana Roberson, you’ll feel as if you’re right there in the middle school gymnasium with the actors.

And that’s even more true when fellow audience members are asked to join the cast to compete in the bee, given words that even a nerd like me would miss on.

This isn’t the first time “Putnam County” has been staged here, but to all accounts, it’s the most successful. Civic Amarillo’s Broadway Spotlight Series brought the show here in 2008 for a couple of nights in the Amarillo Civic Center Auditorium, a house that’s way too big for a small show like this.

The third part of a trilogy of films on the unimaginable violence rocking Juarez, Mexico, opens Friday at Westgate Mall 6.

“The New Juarez,” a documentary by journalist Charlie Minn, brings an extended look at the shocking drug-related crime to an end. Well, as much as possible, because the killings, despite a drop in reported deaths, are still going on, and there’s still a seemingly insatiable demand for the cartels’ illegal drugs.

Since President Felipe Calderon declared war on the cartels shortly after his December 2006 inauguration, more than 60,000 Mexicans have died in the ensuing violence, Minn said in September, before his second film, “Murder Capital of the World,” debuted at the Amarillo Star 14 theater.

Minn is an angry filmmaker, but the unrelenting violence he documents makes that understandable.

He gives most sides of the story a fair break, giving Juarez’s mayor an opportunity to defend draconian police tactics that, while they might be leading to a serious drop in crime, are also leading to accusations of civil rights and due-process violations, torture and even murder.

Minn might have strengthened his argument by tightening it to one film instead of three, but there’s no denying the power of his story.

The film will screen for at least a week at the mall theater. Tickets are $5 instead of the $2 normally charged for second-run films.